Sascha Wil­son

The Peo­ples' Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment is do­ing for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning no favours by pay­ing his med­ical bills, ac­cord­ing to Bas­deo Pan­day. He told a press con­fer­ence at Rien­zi Com­plex, Cou­va yes­ter­day: "I see that the gov­ern­ment is boast­ing that they are pay­ing for Mr Man­ning's med­ical bills. I want to tell them that they are not do­ing Mr Man­ning any favours. "That is his right." Pan­day said dur­ing his tenure as prime min­is­ter a Cab­i­net de­ci­sion was made to pay the med­ical bills of for­mer prime min­is­ters and pres­i­dents.

Man­ning, who suf­fered a stroke at his Vista­bel­la home on Jan­u­ary 23, was air­lift­ed to Wash­ing­ton DC ear­li­er this week for treat­ment. The gov­ern­ment grant­ed the fam­i­ly's re­quest to pay US$91,000 to have him air­lift­ed. For­eign Af­fairs and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan said at a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing on Thurs­day that the State would cov­er ex­pens­es to en­sure Man­ning re­ceived the best med­ical care.